Book of Common Prayer
Psalm 18(A)
For the Music Director. A Psalm of David the servant of the Lord. He spoke to the Lord the words of this song on the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:
1 I love You, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my pillar, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge;
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.
3 I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I will be saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death encircled me,
and the torrents of destruction terrified me.
5 The cords of Sheol surrounded me;
the snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called on the Lord,
and cried for help to my God;
He heard my voice from His temple,
and my cry for help came before Him to His ears.
7 Then the earth shook and quaked;
the foundations of the hills also moved;
they reeled because His anger burned.
8 Smoke went up out of His nostrils,
and fire from His mouth devoured;
coals were kindled by it.
9 He bent the heavens and came down,
and darkness was under His feet.
10 He rode on a cherub, and flew;
He flew swiftly on the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness His secret place;
His pavilion was surrounding Him,
dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
12 At the brightness before Him His thick clouds passed by,
hailstones and coals of fire.
13 The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High gave His voice,
hailstones and coals of fire.
14 He sent out His arrows and scattered them,
and He shot out lightning and distressed them.
15 Then the channels of waters appeared,
and the foundations of the world were discovered
at Your rebuke, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.
16 He sent from above, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy,
and from those who hated me,
for they were too strong for me.
18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the Lord was my support.
19 He also brought me forth into a large place;
He delivered me because He delighted in me.
20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands He has repaid me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
and have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all His judgments were before me,
and I did not put away His statutes from me.
23 I was also upright before Him,
and I kept myself from my iniquity.
24 Therefore the Lord has repaid me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in His view.
25 With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful;
with the blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;
26 with the pure You will show Yourself pure;
and with the crooked You will show Yourself crooked.
27 For You will save the afflicted people,
but will bring down prideful eyes.
28 For You will cause my lamp to shine;
the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.
29 For by You I can run through a troop,
and by my God I can leap a wall.
30 As for God, His way has integrity;
the word of the Lord is proven;
He is a shield
to all those who take refuge in Him.
31 For who is God except the Lord?
Or who is a rock besides our God?
32 It is God who clothes me with strength,
and gives my way integrity.
33 He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
and causes me to stand on my high places.
34 He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms bend a bow of bronze.
35 You have given me the shield of Your salvation,
and Your right hand has held me up,
and Your gentleness has made me great.
36 You have lengthened my stride under me,
so that my feet did not slip.
37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them;
I did not return until they were destroyed.
38 I wounded them, and they were not able to rise;
they are fallen under my feet.
39 For You clothed me with strength for the battle;
You subdued under me those who rose up against me.
40 You gave me the necks of my enemies,
and I destroyed those who hate me.
41 They cried for help, but there was none to save them;
even to the Lord, but He did not answer them.
42 Then I beat them small as the dust before the wind;
I cast them out as the dirt in the streets.
43 You have delivered me from the hostilities of the people,
and You have made me the head of nations;
a people whom I have not known serve me.
44 At hearing a report, they obey me;
foreigners come cringing to me.
45 Foreigners fade away,
and come quaking out of their prisons.
46 The Lord lives! And blessed be my Rock!
May the God of my salvation be exalted.
47 It is God who avenges me
and subdues the people under me;
48 He delivers me from my enemies.
You lift me up above those who rise up against me;
You have delivered me from the violent man.
49 Therefore I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the nations,
and sing praises to Your name.
50 He gives great deliverance to His king,
and shows lovingkindness to His anointed,
to David and to his descendants for evermore.
18 Then I commanded you at that time, saying, “The Lord your God has given you this land to possess it. All you men of valor shall pass over armed before your brothers, the children of Israel. 19 But your wives and your little ones, and your livestock (for I know that you have much livestock) shall remain in your cities which I have given you 20 until the Lord has given rest to your brothers, as well as to you, and until they also possess the land which the Lord your God has given them beyond the Jordan. Then each of you shall return to his possession which I have given you.”
Moses Forbidden to Cross the Jordan
21 I commanded Joshua at that time, saying, “Your eyes have seen all that the Lord your God has done to these two kings. So shall the Lord do to all the kingdoms where you pass. 22 Do not fear them, for the Lord your God, He shall fight for you.”
23 I pleaded with the Lord at that time, saying, 24 “O Lord God, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness, and Your mighty hand, for what god is there in heaven or in earth that can do according to Your works and according to Your might? 25 Let me, I pray, go over and see the good land that is beyond the Jordan, that good hill country, and Lebanon.”
26 But the Lord was angry with me because of you and would not listen to me, and the Lord said to me, “Enough of that! Speak to Me no more of this matter. 27 Get up to the top of Pisgah and lift up your eyes to the west and north and south and east, and see it with your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. 28 But charge Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him, for he shall cross over before this people, and he shall cause them to inherit the land which you will see.”
Wrath and Mercy of God
19 You will then say to me, “Why does He yet find fault? For who can resist His will?” 20 Rather, O man, who are you to answer back to God? Shall the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does the potter not have power over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, willing to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He previously prepared for glory, 24 even us, whom He has called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? 25 As indeed He says in Hosea:
“I will call those who were not My people, ‘My people,’
and her who was not beloved, ‘Beloved,’ ”[a]
26 and,
“In the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’
there they shall be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”[b]
27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the children of Israel be like the sand of the sea,
a remnant shall be saved.[c]
28 For He will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness,
because the Lord will make a quick work upon the earth.”[d]
29 And as Isaiah previously said:
“Unless the Lord of Hosts
had left us a seed,
we would have become like Sodom,
and been made like Gomorrah.”[e]
Israel and the Gospel
30 What shall we say then? The Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith, 31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, did not attain the law of righteousness. 32 Why not? Because they did not seek it by faith, but by the works of the law. For they stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:
“Look! I lay in Zion a stumbling stone
and rock of offense,
and whoever believes in Him will not be ashamed.”[f]
The Destruction of the Temple Foretold(A)
24 Jesus departed from the temple and was leaving when His disciples came to show Him the temple buildings. 2 Jesus answered them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another that shall not be thrown down.”
Troubles and Persecutions(B)
3 As He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?”
4 Jesus answered them, “Take heed that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled. For all these things must happen, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, epidemics, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.
9 “Then they will hand you over to be persecuted and will kill you. And you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. 10 Then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will rise and will deceive many. 12 Because iniquity will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.